In the days after the fatal Salsa on St. Clair shooting in July, mayoral hopeful Brad Bradford appeared in a video titled “How are you feeling, Toronto?” on Facebook.
“In the coming days, you’re going to hear from leaders at press conferences that are going to tell you crime statistics are down,” he said.
“Well, people don’t experience life in a spreadsheet. Ask anyone who is running for their lives on St. Clair Street if they feel this city is safe.”
The comments captured, in a nutshell, the fact-versus-feelings debate about crime in Toronto.
The fact is that violent crime rates in Toronto and the GTA are falling, and generally have been for decades.
Crime is down in Toronto — homicides at a 50-year low, shootings and robberies falling — yet most Torontonians believe the opposite is true, and that disconnect has become a flashpoint in the mayoral race. As candidates trade accusations over policing and public safety, criminologists say the gap between data and fear isn’t new, but it’s proving especially potent this municipal election season.
There were decreases in the Major Crime Indicators that Toronto police track including crimes such as assault, robbery and theft. These trends are mostly continuing into 2026. Toronto is, according to the statistics, one of the safest cities in the world for its population size.
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw talked about the disconnect during an interview on CP24 this week. He said TPS data is showing shootings at 20 year lows. There have been 62 shootings so far this year, which is down 20 per cent year-to-date compared to last year.
“So, the data tells us a story that we’re going in the right direction downwards, but the sense of safety and security is not necessarily connecting with the data,” he said.
There have been spikes in certain crimes that may be contributing to public sentiment. Police have released terrifying surveillance videos of home invasions and arsons, which are on the rise. While robberies might be down, fraud and scams are up and police across the GTA have warned distraction and retail theft is increasing.
A recent survey of a random sample of 1,500 Canadian adults from across the country looked at the perception of 15 cities and found that 57 per cent of respondents said they considered Toronto somewhat or very unsafe, while only 39 per cent described it as safe. Toronto ranks second-worst nationally for perceived safety, trailing only Winnipeg.
“Toronto is different,” said David Valentin, principal at Liaison Strategies, in a statement with the survey results. “Toronto is perceived as almost as unsafe as Winnipeg, but the official crime-severity data does not put Toronto in the same category.
“Toronto stands out as the clearest reputational penalty in the report.”
That builds on another survey of Torontonians last year that found 76 per cent of people surveyed said they thought that the homicide rate had gone up and 32 per cent of people think that crime is the top issue in the city, along with affordability.
The risk-fear paradox
Criminologists and sociologists have dubbed it the risk-fear paradox, often chalking it up to media coverage of crime and politicians using crime as a talking point.
But the feelings of fear can also affect people’s behaviour.
’‘Feeling unsafe is not the same as being unsafe, right? Those are two different things, but feelings are important because how you live in your city is going to be conditioned by how you feel about your safety,” said Heather Rollwagen, associate professor of sociology at Toronto Metropolitan University.
She said this can cause cyclical loops, where feeling unsafe leads to behaviour change that can cause unsafe feelings to perpetuate.
As an example, she points to the end of 2023, when there were a number of high profile and violent incidents on or around the TTC.
“If you feel unsafe on the subway, you won’t take the subway, so people then choose to drive downtown or take an Uber. So then it actually impacts people’s willingness to go on (the subway) and then in some ways it reinforces the fear,” said Rollwagen.
How are you feeling, Toronto?
Bradford has criticized incumbent Olivia Chow for not taking a spot on the police services board. Chow’s response in one recent debate was that crime is down and her focus has been on hiring more mental health support workers.
Bradford, meanwhile, has called for hiring 1,000 more police officers and more police on the TTC. He’s pledged to build a police substation at Union Station, which police said they had been planning for a while.
Across the GTA’s regions, crime rate are usually pretty low compared to Toronto and for the most part has been trending down, but it’s not uniform.
In Durham, the police chief reported general downward trends, but at the end of 2025 highlighted shootings and mental health apprehensions rising. The Halton police chief reported in April that crime was the lowest there since 2014, with violent crime falling for the past three years. In York Region, things have remained static for the past two years, but there are signs of a decrease this year, with overall incidents down 12 per cent and shootings and homicides experiencing year-to-date declines.
Peel is a different story; while there have been many downward crime trends, shooting incidents have been up, and public safety has become an issue in the Mississauga mayoral election.
Data from Peel police shows 103 shootings in the first half of 2026, nearly doubling the 58 from the same time period in 2025. There, incumbent mayor Carolyn Parrish is being criticized for not sitting on the police board, which she left in 2024 to challenge a 20 per cent budget request. Her rivals, Bonnie Crombie and Alvin Tedjo, have both promised to hire more officers. That promise has earned Tedjo the first-ever endorsement from the Peel Police union.
‘The visual signs of disorder’
Scot Wortley, a criminology professor at University of Toronto, said he’s seen the disconnect between fact and feeling play out for nearly 25 years when it comes to the perception of crime.
“Surveys over the last 25 years will show the same thing, that people overall think that crime is getting worse, even when it’s getting better,” said Wortley.
He said a focus on unhoused people and drug addictions may also be colouring people’s perceptions.
According to City of Toronto data, the number of unhoused people doubled from 2021 to 2024, going from 7,300 to 15,400. In 2025, the city’s efforts helped reduce that number to 12,196.
He pointed to “the difference between crime and visual signs of disorder.”
“The presence and visibility can contribute to the feeling that the city is more dangerous than it has been, but that perception is not consistent with what we’re seeing in terms of overall crimes,” said Wortley.
Neither crime numbers and stats being down nor the disconnect between citizens and the numbers is Toronto-specific. Crime numbers are also down generally across the U.S., and officials in major cities including New York, San Francisco and Chicago have all tried to spread this message. In New York, there’s been a focus on several crime lows through media releases from the mayor’s office, while Chicago has focused on the drop in homicides in recent years.
The good old days
Wortley said it’s important to look at who benefits from the idea that crime is up, and he points to police, police unions and politicians, who conversely also take credit when there are dips in crime.
“I think crime is often a deflection strategy that takes attention away. We can see how (U.S. President Donald) Trump uses the issue in the United States. The focus on immigrant crime or street crimes, something that deflects attention away from … corporate malfeasance and corporate crime and tax cuts for the rich and all these other issues,” he said.
Crime is down across the U.S. with the lowest number of homicides since 1900, which Trump has also taken credit for, while also saying crime is out of control.
Jane Sprott, a criminology professor at TMU has an example that’s even closer to home, referencing when Minister of Justice Sean Fraser recently introduced Bill C-14, the Sentencing and Bail Reform Act.
“He actually made a comment about how safe it was when the Jays last won the World Series. So the early 1990s, his pals and him were running around in crime-free neighbourhoods and they didn’t worry about break and enters and motor vehicle thefts … he was nine years old then, so he’s using his memory of what crime was like and that is false,” said Sprott.
According to that recent Liaison Strategies poll, only 12 per cent of people actually follow criminal statistics.
From Jane Creba to Salsa on St. Clair
Sprott and Wortley also bring up the role of the media. It’s hard to believe crime is down significantly when morning news programs start at the latest crime scene where something horrible has happened. The rise and popularity of true crime as a genre and social media sites that cover and amplify coverage of crime is also reinforcing that crime is all around us.
The John Howard Society, a crime reduction non-profit, has written extensively on media’s reporting on crime. A February post looked at 10 studies at how the media influenced crime perceptions and the criminal justice system, “lead(ing) to inaccurate public perceptions which in turn drive poorly thought-out laws and policies.”
“You’re never going to have zero crime,” said Sprott. “The numbers might be lower but there’s always going to be some level and it’s always going to be disruptive and horrible and traumatizing … but I mean if people are chasing a zero crime rate that’s never going to happen.”
Wortley also said that high profile crimes have a larger impact on people’s perceptions.
“I think the most recent example of sensationalized crime would have been the shooting at the Salsa on St. Clair. There is no doubt that this is something that we should have taken seriously, and it was traumatic, not only to the victims, but those who were there. But to argue that these things have never happened before, that it’s unprecedented, that is a sign of the decline of Toronto, is just incorrect,” he said.
He points to the Jane Creba shooting, the Just Desserts shooting, the Danzig shooting, the Danforth shooting, the Yonge Street van attack and more.
“As a criminologist, we have long memories. Every time something high profile happens, there are individuals who will step out and say this is evidence of Toronto’s decline,” said Wortley.
“And clearly during an election period, crime and public safety are going to be a big issue … and some candidates are going to push the idea that Toronto has never been more unsafe and that simply is not true.”
